The bill, introduced by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) July 10, would strengthen the
authority of the Office of Personnel Management to terminate an individual for
misconduct or for providing false background information.

"If an inspector — or person that's employed by the federal government or
contractor — falsifies a background investigation report … they're gone.
They're fired. They're out the door. Because this has to be a zero-tolerance kind
of situation," Tester said in an interview on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Emily Kopp.

SCORE comes after Edward Snowden, a government contractor with a high-level security
clearance, leaked classified information about National Security Agency
surveillance in June. Tester said the system already was broken, but the Snowden
scandal brought the issue of security clearances to light.

"It pointed out to us, folks in Congress, that we have security
threats from the outside that we're always focusing on, that we're spending
hundreds of billions of dollars trying to make sure our security is solid," Tester
said. "What we haven't paid much attention to is the folks who get security
clearances and the impacts of someone releasing top secret stuff from the inside
out."

The bill, which still is in committee, also would free up resources for OPM to do more oversight of
the security clearance process.

"It makes it so there's money out of that revolving fund that can be used for
audits," Tester said of the bill. "This revolving fund pays for the work that's
done to make sure people are eligible to get a security clearance. It pays for
those contractors out there that are doing the work to make sure folks are
qualified to have a security clearance. To be able to let the inspector general in
to audit that fund will be able to allow us to get more transparency in the fund
and more transparency into the process of security clearances in general."

"We've got folks from both sides of the aisle on it. And, hopefully, if the house
doesn't have a bill, they'll take a look at ours and get it across the finish line
over there and get it to the president's desk," Tester said.

Overall, 4.9 million government contractors and employees held security clearances
as of October 2012, according to a January Office
of the Director of National Intelligence report obtained by the Federation of
American Scientists. About 1 million of those holding security clearances were
government contractors.